California's Ban on Gay "Conversion Therapy" Will Finally Be Enforced

Between the religious rights of corporations coming before women's access to contraception and the overturning of Massachusetts buffer zones, the last few days have been awfully disheartening, legally speaking. If you're searching for a little scrap of silver lining, here's some good news: On Monday, the Supreme Court refused to consider a challenge to an appeals court ruling from August 2013 that banned "conversion therapy" — therapy that aims to turn gay minors straight — in California [via the Associated Press]. In other words, an approved ban on gay "conversion therapy" for children will now, finally, be enforced in the state.

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The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which the Supreme Court let stand without comment, stated that the ban does not violate the free speech rights of licensed counselors or patients seeking treatment. The appeals court stated that California lawmakers properly showed that conversion therapy, also sometimes referred to as "reparative therapy," is seen by much of the medical mainstream as ineffective and potentially dangerous. In fact, state Sen. Ted Lieu, the law's sponsor, described such therapy for individuals under the age of 18 as "psychological child abuse."

Liberty Counsel, a Christian legal aid group that was among the ban's challengers, argued that there is no scientific proof of reparative therapy being harmful, but there is also absolutely no proof of it doing any long-term good — even if you accept the offensive assumption that "converting" from homosexuality to heterosexuality is a good thing. There is also plenty of anecdotal evidence suggesting that conversion therapy causes more psychological damage than it heals; according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, "People who have undergone conversion therapy have reported increased anxiety, depression, and in some cases, suicidal ideation." The American Psychiatric Association opposes therapy that attempts to change a person's sexual orientation.

Fundamentally, conversion therapy depends on the assumption that being gay or bisexual is a mental illness that needs to be cured. Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, claims that many children "developed these unwanted [same-sex] attractions because of abuse of a pedophile," which is simply a blatantly inaccurate assertion about how sexual orientation develops. This line of thinking — that LGBT people are somehow "broken" — underlies much of the discrimination and mistreatment that such people face, and which might encourage young gay people (or, more probably, their parents) to seek conversion therapy in the first place. Banning conversion therapy is a necessary step in the process of educating the public and increasing understanding and acceptance of LGBT individuals.

California's ban on conversion therapy for minors, the first of its kind in the nation, has not been enforced while the lawsuit against it made its way to the Supreme Court. The 9th Circuit is expected to lift an injunction against the ban within days, at which point the ban will take effect. New Jersey was the second state to ban conversion therapy for those under 18; its law is also being challenged by Liberty Counsel, and the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to hear the case on July 9th. Eight more states and the District of Columbia have pending legislation modeled on the California and New Jersey laws. With any luck, the outdated practice of attempting to treat same-sex attraction like a disease will soon be a thing of the past.